Haven’t been sharing much about my life, so I decided to add one more post to my Claud the panda Entrepreneur series. I’m sharing my experience and journey setting up our new office.

24seven's Office aka My second home

Two months ago, my team and I were struggling to keep up with the high cost of rental for the atas office with great address, great branding, great facilities and great view of the Singapore skyline from the 48th floor. That’s a dream place to be for anyone be it for an office space or a living home. Like many entrepreneur, we aim high, we over dream and under calculated. Actually I thought I’ve already over calculated our finances, but guess my timing of the whole thing isn’t that accurate afterall. So when the bank starts running dry, I panicked. Not going to let the rental drag us all down, I made an executive decision. MOVE!

After we confirmed our move out date from the old office, the team decided that if we can’t find a decent place with good rental, we will work from home for awhile till we can find a space. But I know that will hurt us in terms of client’s and partner’s trust and their thought of the company. This is something I realised when we just started out. Working from home though save us lots of operational cost, but when we meet clients and when the asked about where we are residing, the words “working from home” seems to be an omen. Those words kind of caused our first few failed pitches. The clients perhaps feel that we are some small sleezy company which don’t even have a proper space to work at. And because of the nature of our business, an office space is not an option.

During the last two weeks before we have to clear the room, I spent all my time trying to look for a location. The team was called to discuss about the possibilities we had. And just a week before we had to move, I signed and confirmed on a corner unit, 258sqf space at a retro looking (and smelling) shopping centre along Upper Serangoon Road. The space is surely bigger than our previous one, but minus all the great thing that the old one came with. But we are happy with what we have now.

We got the keys to our new office a day before we had to vacant from the previous. So on the day we collected the keys, we started setting it up already. Armed with paint cans, brushes, lots of newspaper, two big plastic mats and no light (because we thought there wasn’t any), Diana and myself with some help from couple of friends, we gave the office space new fresh paint. And then the silliest moment through our setting-office-experience was on that very same day, when Abang decided to press the power switched and THERE WAS POWER! There was actually light during the entire time we were painting in there! -___-||

Anyway, so the next day, with help from Diana’s husband and his workers, they moved everything out from the office which filled the entire lorry space, and move in to our new home. The office needed more furniture and stuff, we were planning to get them when we have spare cash, but thanks to my Dad’s ‘office-renovation-friend’ we managed to secure many old office furniture which were in very good condition! That saved us almost $1,000! Starting up isn’t easy, its great we managed to have such (free) opportunities.

Within three days, the not-so-nice office space got revamped and turned into a cosy and homely place for 24seven. I must thank Diana for her hardwork and never-say-die attitude during the move. I can never do it without her. Don’t see her small small size ok! She’s damn strong and powerful one! Don’t play play with her!

So that’s the physical part of the setting up of the office. Which was the not so pocket-painful part. Unless you want a super sexy and sleek office that cost a bomb to renovate and setup. For a startup, please, don’t do this kind of thing ok? If you’ve got huge sugar daddy or mommy backing you up, then I’ve no comments.

Here comes the pocket-painful and paperwork that I was involved in. Very useful if you’re going to set up your own office too.

After you’ve found your ideal space, and if it is within a shopping centre or a non-office building, these are (or may be) some of the things that you’ve to be prepared to do:

1. Get in touch with the property owner or its representing agent.
2. Check the rental rate and arrange for a viewing session.
3. During the viewing session, ask as many questions as you have. Some questions which you might want to ask may include:
   • What does the rent include? For central-controlled aircon, usually it will come together with the rent. So you just have to pay for the electricity bill charged by PUB.
   • Who was the previous owner? What business were they running? You don’t want loan shark or what not to come banging on your door do you?
   • What is the minimum lease period and how much deposit do they need? Lease period usually is for 1 year that guarantees your rental rate during that year. For ours, we had to pay a 2 month deposit with 1st month rental upon confirmation of occupancy.
   • Check if they have a rent-free renovation period and how long it is. This will give you a week or two of rent-free period for your renovation. In our case, we had 11 days of rent free operation since we completed our “renovation” within 3 days. Some property might need you to pay an admin fee and a renovation deposit too if there’s hacking, tearing, drilling etc involved. So make sure you check before any renovation work is carried out.
   • Check when’s the rental payment date. You don’t want to miss this date!
   • will add more if I can think of any…
4. After you’re satisfied and want to take up the space, try to negotiate for a cheaper rental.
5. Sign a lease agreement with the property’s representing agent. This is also when your first cheque of the required deposit and first month’s rental has to come out.
6. For shop space converting to an office space, a “Change of Use” Lodgment Submission has to be filed with URA. You’ll have to pay $300 + GST for this application. A copy of the lodgment submission have to be submitted to the representing agent you signed the lease with.
7. Next, you’ll have to proceed to SP Services to activate your corporate utilities account. For this, a $450 deposit is needed and an activation date has to be set where you will have to be present at the office where SP Services will sent someone to “activate” the power supply.
   I’m not sure how the actual activation was supposed to be like, cause our power was already available when we moved in. The SP Services guy just came, take the meter reading and left. -_-||
8. We didn’t need a physical phone line, so we skipped this part. If you need a phone line at the office, I think you’ll also need to activate it with Singtel. For us we use our mobile and mobile broadband in the office. Save money lah!

That’s about it. If you managed to cover all the above, you’re good to go. Just remember to pay your rental and SP bills on time! And that reminded me, I’ve got to pay ours soon!

Good luck in setting up your dream office! Perhaps our cosy office can give you some inspiration. Wahahahahaha!

Almost half a year into my small venture with my dedicated team and its been going well so far. I’ve been very lucky to have met quite a number of people whom are now business partners of 24seven. Its amazing how things fall into place on their own. When we started, I had a long list of leads I want to call and catch up with. But when we started till date, I have yet managed to go through even one-quarter of that list. Our namecards got passed around and thanks to good karma and relationship forged way before I started, contacts were also passed around. And its amazing how much these relationship eventually turn around. One thing for everyone out there, don’t underestimate the power of good karma, and never avoid building relationship with that new comer in a company. You’ll never know when he or she will get promoted and become the one who makes the decisions. Or he may know someone whom may one day be your business partner.

Good relationships though important, it is only the first step to the many great things that may come. You will need to have good referrals and credentials to back you up in the business world. Especially when you are small and starting up, the big corporations may know who you are, but in order to sign the confirmation, they need to make sure your company is reliable and has a team who can execute the work effectively.

One thing that my team lacks, is credentials from related field of work. With no PR nor corporate communications experience, we struggled when we present to new clients whom we have no past relationship with. And generating our first list of credentials is tough. But I’m glad we’re getting there. Slowly but surely. Thanks to all those who are giving us the chance to prove ourselves.

Another thing which my previous boss taught me, and something which I’d experienced myself not no ago, its that knowing big names from high up in the corporate leader may sound amazing and great. They may be the one who sign on the pay check for that deal, but the decision is made together with his team and the people executing and managing the campaigns. Knowing that big name may make it easier when the executives proposed something and mentioned your name. But that’s that. Unless of course, that big shot high up there is your Dad, than the story changes.

If you are starting up, or planning to, go get your credentials and referrals accumulated. Start paying forward and grab any opportunity that comes your way with real interests and passion. Don’t do it because you have to, do it because you want to!

Some thoughts from the @.@ panda entrepreneur.

Yeah! Finally I’m here! Woke up at 6am, left home at 7am, met U-zyn at 8.15am, reached custom at 12pm! And finally only reached MSC Cyberport at 12.40pm! Just in time for lunch! Ha!

So now, at 2pm, I’m sitting at the JB wing listening to the founder of Foldees sharing From talking cock at the mamak to creating a business and running it. They received about RM150k equity grant for their idea. Foldees is a similar concept of Threadless, but instead of designing and selling tshirts, they sell greeting cards.

Their Start-up Process
First they’ve the idea, they talk cock to everyone around them to share their idea. And after enough of talking cock they realised that its time to write it down. Where structure is not necessary. Do a quick search for competitors, market and viability. When you’ve got the idea, you try to assemble your team. (So far, his sharing is exactly what I’ve been doing too! Ha!) In the team, you need someone who’s motivated, be able to stay communicate and should have the necessary basic skills for the idea. And importantly, accept that you’re gonna make mistakes and take decisive action.

When the above is done, to push the team to move forward, you’ll need to set a deadline. In fact, you should find a dateline! It helps if you apply for a grant, tie to a rush seaon or have a personal deadline.

Now that you’ve a dateline, a team and your idea, you need to start implementing your management skills. Be decisive and set goals and get the team to coalesce around them. Create tasklists for each member and accept no last minute failures! You’ll also need to manage expectations and motivation. Always have in mind that life is not all about work, remember to play together too!

New datelines and milestones should be created to keep the team’s sense of urgency. Always keep moving the goalpost and take baby progress steps when you feel that the motivation is down. Some ways to do that as suggested is to move into an office, look for more investment or hire someone.

(So far, his sharing has been pretty interesting to me since I’m now somewhere in between all the above too.)

To end the life cycle, wash, rinse, repeat until you own an airline! Woooohoooo!! A few things to watch out for at this stage…

• cashflow
  Be prepared for late payments, overwhelming bills and invoices.
• time commitment
  Set aside fixed time to meet weekly.
• professionalism
  Be impressive (at all times if possible), or at least perform up to the expected level and never fall into the disappointed level

Q&A session and they’re giving out Foldees christmas cards! (Which I tried to order online few days ago but the system hang on me when I was trying to submit my order. )

One asked about the touchy issue of equity. And his reply was, find someone who doesn’t bother about it. But if he does, its also good as this shows that he has real interest and believes in the idea.

Went for a break and a group of campers played an interesting game of werewolves.

Now, replacing a planned session for sharing of “”My 1 Year in a China Web Startup”" is going to be Lightning Talk. I think they’ll generally be talking cock so I’m going to sit near by and see what this is about. Sounds interesting and this session is surely going to be very loud! I hear voices roaring across the room!

Lightning Talk is a 5-min talk by anyone who’s here. And this is a good fill-in session for barcamp events. Interesting and useful concept.

First lightning talk is about Social Networking site – facebook. Ehhh… ya you know about facebook, but he’s sharing how facebook (or any alternative social networking tools) allows him to see who’s looking for a job and who’s looking for jobs. And also how people are communicating and connecting.

A guy’s sharing tips on how to pick-up girls! Hmm… ok I’m moving over to the other sessions…

Now joining the group inside the conference room. Not sure what’s happening, everyone’s watching a video attentively. Video from Frontline World. Video is about how a woman, Grace, raise money for her peanut butter making business. Oh! Ok… its about the website call Kiva. How some who wants to loan/donate small money to entrepreneurs to start the business. Looks interesting, you might want to go check it out.

Jerry Ong sharing How to Utilize Online Social Networking to Built Your Blog Reader and Grow Your Business!.

He’s sharing when’s the right time to post updates to get more eyeballs. Timing usually during the morning office hour, after lunch hour and night after 10pm. He uses chat users online at various sites to check out the right time to ping his updates. Also sharing how one can make use of Ping.fm to spread out a single message to multiple sites. (But to me, this is very irritating especially if my follower on my twitter, facebook, msn etc ping the same information at the same time on all the sites.)

Next he’s sharing to difference between facebook profile, group and page. And wow!! His facebook page for his blog has 1,227 fans leh! Than he shared how he created just for fun facebook groups to gather people and use it to spam send mass messages out to the group members.

No update for the past hour cause the sessions I want to attend was cancelled. Now sitting in the conference room waiting for How to Improve Ur Perfomances and Unleash Potentials via installing a new mental software. by Lau Kok Pin.

About the presentation…

• a basic understanding of the functions of your mind
• learn about the self imposed limitations supressing your talents and intelect
• understand people and their issues
• understand how to motivate people

Sorry folks… no update cos I’m not paying attention… haha… chairs to comfortable already. 70% of me is falling alseep, 20% of me is trying to check my emails and catch up with reading… and the remaining 10% is trying hard to listen to the presenter. Feeling guilty but I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Yeah!! Bjorn is here! He’s now sharing his one year experience in a China startup which is similar to Second Life – HiPiHi. He was the first to blog about its existence and from there got noticed. And from a coincidental conversation during a conference, he got to meet the CEO and helped him with some translation. One month later, he found himself working in China.

In China, knowledge is power. You don’t need to be innovative, you just need a good idea which may already be there. So why not do a startup which is working well in the states and duplicate it in China.

The way to earn money from China consumers, not via advertising, but selling customisable features, templates, emoticons and themes.

There are many VCs in China looking and investing in web 2.0 startup. Even if they’re not profitable, they’re still investing in them. Those who are able to make money are those in the gaming industry especially WWC.

In conclusion… virtual goods is here to stay. If you can design and do it, go do it. You’ll make money!

Now time for dinner… Mr Daniel Cerventus is sitting opposite with his plate of food and enjoying it lah!! Wah lau eh!!

Ok… time to leave JB and head back to SG. Bye BarCampJB!